If Twist's information had merely provided a basic template for this identity, along with foundational background details,
then most of it had been more like an introduction.
Now, the anatomical details in that introduction were being fleshed out and explained in depth.
Wang Yiyang could feel his hands becoming lighter and more precise, steadier and more practiced by the second.
It was as if he had already used those hands to dissect hundreds of different creatures.
The feeling was hard to describe, yet undeniably real.
"What's wrong?" Lei Wei noticed him pause and hurried over to support him.
From her perspective, the mysterious and ruthless head of the Security Department had just finished surgery and come out. Now he swayed as if he were utterly exhausted.
But it had only been the simplest little operation...
Lei Wei pushed down her confusion and carefully helped Wang Yiyang over to a metal chair, where he sat down.
It took Wang Yiyang more than ten minutes to recover from the flood of anatomical images and information.
His hands felt better than ever.
Compared to now, his hands had once felt as if they were shackled by two heavy sets of chains, clumsy and useless.
"I'm fine." Wang Yiyang finally understood the power of randomly gaining an ability.
He looked down at his hands, and suddenly found himself looking forward even more to the new identities he might get in the future.
It's true. Permanently accumulating different identities might bring more trouble.
But I can focus on a few of the strongest identities and rely on them to quickly resolve the problems brought by the others. Then I can gain their abilities.
Just like now.
Wang Yiyang's thoughts grew clear.
I only need to choose the identities that are most useful to me. For the rest, I can resolve their problems, draw their abilities, and then set them aside. I don't have to worry about them anymore.
Once he had settled on that, he felt much more at ease about the system he had suddenly obtained.
Before, he had kept worrying: what if he couldn't resolve the trouble brought by a new identity within the allotted time?
Wouldn't the problems just keep piling up?
"Wait..." Wang Yiyang suddenly froze. When he had performed the surgery just now, he hadn't felt that Twist's identity had brought him any trouble at all.
If performing the simplest surgery counted as a problem, then gaining Anatomy Mastery had been far too easy.
There are two possibilities.
One: I haven't encountered the trouble that comes with Twist's identity yet.
Two: this identity simply has no other problems.
Wang Yiyang looked closely at the data in the lower-right corner of his vision again.
Then he thought of how badly his hands had trembled on the operating table.
Normally, his hands didn't even shake that much when he was cooking.
But today, as soon as he stepped up to the operating table and began cutting, his hands had started trembling violently.
Maybe that's the biggest problem Twist faced. If a surgeon's hands are no longer steady, the consequences are devastating. Wang Yiyang suddenly saw the light.
With a theory in mind, Wang Yiyang changed clothes, then left the hospital with Lei Wei leading the way.
The car had barely gone a few meters when
his phone suddenly rang.
Brr... brr...
Wang Yiyang casually took out his phone and answered.
"Catherine?" The caller was Catherine Chali, the team leader in charge of the Moon Sky Martial Arts Hall in Guixi Town.
"Boss, something's happened here. You may need to make the decision yourself." Catherine's tone was grave.
"What happened?" Wang Yiyang's gaze sharpened.
"It concerns Zhong Can, one of the martial arts hall's members. It has nothing to do with Wang Xinlong."
Unlike Jian, Catherine was cautious and attentive. She might not be decisive when handling things, but she rarely made serious mistakes.
That was why Wang Yiyang had chosen her to keep an eye on his grandfather.
"What happened?" Hearing that it had nothing to do with his grandfather, Wang Yiyang felt slightly relieved. Still, he listened carefully to the voice on the other end.
"Between four and five last night, a group of shadows approached the riverbank near the Moon Sky Martial Arts Hall.
There were six of them. They quietly approached Zhong Can while he was training early in the morning. The two sides seemed to argue.
Then Zhong Can killed them all in sixteen seconds and left.
Five minutes later, another group of shadows rushed over, collected all the bodies, and carried them away."
Catherine gave a brief account of what had happened last night.
"Can you find out who those people were?" Wang Yiyang pressed.
"It'll be difficult. They moved very quickly, and even with the bodies, they were faster than the people tailing them. From their behavior, they seemed like martial artists. They were all wearing masks," Catherine replied.
"Martial artists..." Wang Yiyang fell into thought. But he soon came back to himself.
"Keep monitoring the martial arts hall, and make sure Wang Xinlong stays safe. As for Zhong Can, keep watching and see what happens."
"Understood."
The call ended.
Wang Yiyang flexed his steady, precise fingers and fell silent for a while.
"Go straight to Yahelian."
"Yes, sir," Bodyguard No. 1 replied in a low voice.
Guixi Town.
Midday.
At the Moon Sky Martial Arts Hall, Wang Xinlong sat back in a recliner in the living room, a thin blanket over him as he watched a TV drama.
In the kitchen, the housekeeper was washing some fresh cured meat someone had just delivered.
Two of Wang Xinlong's students were sparring in the courtyard. Every so often, they stopped to discuss something.
Zhong Can sat alone beside the door to his room, on a wooden chair that belonged only to him.
Beside the chair sat an old, unused stone mill. The gray-white stone and yellow wooden handle seemed like some peerless treasure, holding his gaze fast.
Sunlight filled the courtyard, but the temperature was still low.
Everyone outside had bundled up in warm clothes, but Zhong Can wore only a T-shirt and casual pants.
His tall, muscular frame showed faintly beneath the gray-and-white clothes.
Dudu.
Suddenly, his phone chimed with a text message.
Zhong Can slowly shifted his gaze to the phone.
Dudu... dudu... dudu...
The phone vibrated again and again, as if it had gone mad.
Zhong Can stared at it for a moment, seeming to finally snap out of his reverie.
He picked it up, unlocked it, and looked at the screen.
"You regret it?!"
"Why did you kill the people sent to work with you?!"
"Zhong Can, you should know who gave you the key to breaking through your limits! It wasn't Wang Xinlong. It was us!"
"You should understand that we can make you, and we can destroy you!"
"I can let you killing those people go. We can even give up on the Moon Sky Martial Arts Hall's secret techniques. But if you want to leave, you'd better think about the consequences!"
"Or have you gone soft? The Moon Sky Martial Arts Hall will only become a stone blocking your path forward. Either move it aside or destroy it. You have no choice!"
Zhong Can read the messages without expression, then locked his phone again and casually tossed it aside.
He stood up and glanced at the old man watching TV in the living room. Then he silently left the martial arts hall and stopped on the riverbank. He began practicing the Moon Sky Fist Wang Xinlong had taught him, again and again.
As the martial arts hall's signature style, the Moon Sky Fist had two major branches: Dynamic Fist and Static Fist.
Dynamic Fist was used against ranged attacks, such as firearms. Its guiding principle was to change one's position and movements at high speed, making it impossible for an enemy to get a lock. Then, while the opponent hesitated, one closed the distance and defeated them with a single strike.
Static Fist was used against other martial artists skilled in close-quarters combat.
The term "Static Fist" actually referred to a concept.
The "static" in its name didn't mean stillness. It meant...
Smack.
Zhong Can kicked a pebble into the air and let it sail upward.
Then he held out his right hand.
The pebble drifted past it.
In an instant, the fingertips of his right hand traced a series of blurred paths through the air.
In the span of a second, his right hand darted around the pebble, moving rapidly through the air.
His fingertips struck different parts of the pebble in the briefest instant.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
His hand snapped back, as if it had never moved at all.
The pebble fell naturally under gravity and smacked against the riverbank. Then it shattered.
In just one second, a series of powerful strikes had pierced the pebble's interior.
So when it fell, its surface still looked mostly intact, but inside it had already been reduced to fragments.
Zhong Can lowered his head and studied the stone powder spilling from the broken surfaces.
He had been able to do this for a year already.
A year later, he was still stuck in place.
He was convinced that Wang Xinlong was hiding one final secret technique and hadn't taught him everything.
So he had kept waiting.
But now, he seemed to be running out of patience.
Yahe Lian Self-Defense Training Center.
Inside a vast, gymnasium-like space, more than a hundred men and women stood in rows on a black-and-white striped rubber mat. Under the guidance of several coaches in black T-shirts and shorts, they repeatedly lifted their knees, side-kicked, raised their knees, and front-kicked.
Their synchronized shouts rang out again and again.
The training center's head coach, He Xinghan, a Glimmer-ranked martial artist from the Martial Alliance, was dressed in a suit as he led Wang Yiyang and his party slowly past the right side of the training area.
He Xinghan was fifty-three and had long passed the peak of a martial artist's explosive power.
He had a thick waist and sturdy legs, with a slight paunch. He always wore a kindly smile and kept his hair cut in a bristly crew cut. He looked nothing like a martial artist.
In truth, he was also quite puzzled. He had no idea why someone from the Mister Group had suddenly come to his training center.
Quite a few businesses worked with them to teach their employees basic self-defense.
But those were all ordinary small businesses.
A multinational corporation like Mister had its own Security Department.
A company of that scale definitely maintained its own security force. They wouldn't be short on people who could teach self-defense.
Given all that, it was hard to tell what the two representatives from Mister wanted.
Especially considering the pair: one young man who couldn't be over thirty, and a beautiful assistant about the same age.
The more you looked at them, the more they seemed like rich kids out for a stroll.
"This is the training center's regular practice area. We sometimes lend it out for competitions hosted by the city.
"So when it comes to strength, our training center is still one of the best in Yingxing City," He Xinghan explained.
Wang Yiyang nodded.
"I'm not interested in this," he said bluntly. "Actually, I came here because I'm interested in Limit Martial Artists. I want to learn more about their combat capabilities and destructive power."
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